AC's and Cuppa's Treks and Travels — Day Trips and Plane Trips

Just Beeing Around

Today has been an off day, the kind of day that you sometimes need on a holiday — a day to recuperate or do the laundry. I guess that it was both of those needs that were met today, thanks at least partly to the weather: the cloudy, rainy, cool weather that faced us grimly this morning and caused us to want to pull the covers back up over our bodies. But it wasn’t all bad because we had been needing an opportunity to do the laundry — and rest just a little bit on our tenth day of this trip.

So, that’s what we did — laundry, some grocery shopping, a two hour saunter in the park (sitting idly on park benches for at least half of the time), and a stroll down Denman Ave in the evening. Hmmm … that doesn’t sound all that restful when I put it that way. Does it?

Since there’s nothing much to report from today, I am going to thrill you (he said sarcastically) with two photos from the week. They are both of bees on flowers, the first from the West Vancouver sea wall and the second from Stanley Park. Go ahead, take a look, and meet me again below.

I really do have a valid reason for posting those pics. It has to do with perhaps the very best thing about Canada’s West Coast. It’s that there are no bugs here. Well, obviously, that’s a wee bit of an overstatement, but in comparative terms it seems as though it is true.

It was not much more than a year ago that I sat in a car repair shop back home and fell into converse with the young man beside me. It turned out that he worked for the MNR of Ontario — the Ministry of Natural Resources. We chatted about a number of things, including his stay in British Columbia doing a similar job there (I know, there is here at the moment — it is confusing). I think I must have opined something to the effect that the mosquitoes and bugs must be large and numerous out here. I was thinking that made sense because of the tall trees, forests, and abundant precipitation. I was shocked when he said that there are “no mosquitoes in BC” (his very words). Yes, it’s still possible for AC to learn new things.

And guess what: we’ve been here for ten days now and have seen nary a biter, and we have been in the forests folks. Back in Ontario, you get swarmed in the forests at this time of year, but we’ve scarcely seen a bug of any description — except for those bees. We sit here in the apartment with our screenless windows wide open, and nothing flies in. I don’t know why it’s like this, and I don’t care. It sure is nice though. Really nice!